LA to Ban Medical Marijuana Stores…

NL- They don’t want porn around. They don’t want pot around. Maybe they should just close LA County to everyone but those who are right wing religious nuts who vote for the Tea Party candidates. Geezus, what has happened to "HIP" L.A.?

Medical marijuana patients in Los Angeles will have to rush to dispensaries if they want to stock up on marijuana products.

The LA City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to ban all dispensaries, although patients and caretakers still can grow
marijuana at home. When the vote was tallied after a full day of deliberation and public comment, a few members of the public stood up and shouted angrily at the city council, as police stood protectively in front of members.

Spokeswoman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Vicki Curry, told The Huffington Post that the mayor supports the ban and will sign it into law sometime next week. It goes into effect 30 days from when it is signed, which means by September, according to the city attorney’s figures, 762 registered dispensaries and a couple hundred more unregistered facilities will be forced to close.

During the debate that preceded the vote, he said that because regulation hasn’t worked, the city should ban all dispensaries until the state Supreme Court clarifies the legality of the shops. "We failed to [regulate] for the past five years. No matter what we try to do … to regulate it going forward… we will fail again," Huizar said. "The best course of action is … allowing three people or less to collectively cultivate marijuana — that’s what’s allowed under state law."

Third Axis

Right, Michael. They just threw away millions in tax revenues, permit payments, and jobs for hundreds of taxpayers. Those rental/lease properties, once paid for by legal business operators of the dispensaries, will now stand empty to deteriorate in that shortsighted city. Nice work, city council and Mayor Villaraigosa.

Michael Whiteacre

California was recently rated 48th in business friendliness. With the help of groups like AHF and politicians such as those on the LA City Council, I’m confident this great state can go all the way… to 50th.

Larry Horse

Saddest thing is that they just took that money and put it back in the hands of the gangs and the shitbags they get the grass from in Mexico. Weinstein should fight this, how many HIV folks need grass to ease their nausea from the drugs so they can eat.

Karmafan

Weinstein isn’t doing all of this for the good of people in CA and those that are/might/will be HIV+. He is not a humanitarian. He is doing all of this to try and get rid of porno AND fill his pockets at the same time.

Michael Whiteacre

You’re right, Karmafan, Weinstein is no humanitarian. It is about more than money for Weinstein. He’s already wealthy, and is the dictator of a $200 million organization — and he wears a big shiny AIDS advocate halo, too. But Weinstein is also a megalomaniac on a mission to punish people who have (and watch) non male-on-male sex.

In our society, the group that has done the WORST job of stemming the spread of HIV SINCE THE DAWN OF HIV has been what the CDC terms MSM (men who have sex with men). By any logical and statistical standard, the stigma around the dangers of male on male sex (outside of monogamous relationships) has been well earned. Having failed to fix the problem (by successfully encouraging testing and rigorous condom use in the MSM population at large), the goal of guys like Weinstein is to spread the misery around. After all, isn’t it so unfair that non-IV drug using heterosexuals and lesbians don’t live in the same terror as MSMs.

Is there a financial component? Absolutely. As Steele would doubtless agree, condoms are an intrinsic part of AIDS fear and hysteria. Mandatory condoms in porn would constitute permanent, universal product placement for that hysteria. Without that fear and hysteria, funding for AIDS programs would dry up.

The problem is, no one looks at this logically. Even if HIV were the sole cause of AIDS, and there were no co-factors (which, to anyone who has studied either the history of AIDS, or microbiology, should seem ridiculous), viruses are spread through behavior. Everyone does NOT have AIDS, and we’re not ALL at any measurable risk. Your grandmother is not going to get AIDS. Look at the numbers: it’s MSMs, drug users, babies who contract it from their mothers, etc… with a heavy emphasis on the poor and disenfranchised. But those groups have proven difficult to reach — so the cynical move is to transform adult performers into the new Typhoid Marys. Weinstein’s goals are: 1) to punish in order to save face, and 2) to keep fear alive.

max softcore

You’re an idiot if you think the Tea Party is the villain here. There are a fair share of nuts, but also people who want the government the fuck out of their lives when it comes to smut and dope.
Obama’s record on pot has been no better than W’s.

RickMadrid

Mardicon hit it right on the nail! geez a smart juto! The whole state is going to go to shit in the next year. With city wide corruption, cities filing for bankruptcy like Vallejo, Compton, San Bernadino, Temecula, Stockton , and can’t pay their city worker anymore with raises and benifits. Sounds like a really good state!! Keep voting DEMORAT and REBUBS!! you’ll all be in the street’s soon. The pot tax would have generated Billions. Bendejo’s